Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A study published by Columbia University has suggested climate will disrupt future flight operations because it will be more difficult for aircraft to take off.
Climate change may hinder aircraft takeoffs in years ahead: study
Alana Wise
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Extreme heat over the next several decades will make it more difficult for full planes to get off the ground, requiring airlines to offload fuel, cargo and at times even passengers to manage smooth takeoffs, according to a study by a research unit of Columbia University released on Thursday.
If severe heat waves related to climate change become more common in the coming years, researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have concluded that 10 percent to 30 percent of fully loaded planes may have to shed payload during the hottest parts of the day or delay flight until cooler hours.
“Our results suggest that weight restrictions may impose a non-trivial cost on airlines and impact aviation operations around the world,” said Ethan Coffel, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Columbia.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airlines-climatechange-idUSKBN19Y0YD
The abstract of the study;
The impacts of rising temperatures on aircraft takeoff performance
Authors
Ethan D. Coffel, Terence R. Thompson, Radley M. Horton
Steadily rising mean and extreme temperatures as a result of climate change will likely impact the air transportation system over the coming decades. As air temperatures rise at constant pressure, air density declines, resulting in less lift generation by an aircraft wing at a given airspeed and potentially imposing a weight restriction on departing aircraft. This study presents a general model to project future weight restrictions across a fleet of aircraft with different takeoff weights operating at a variety of airports. We construct performance models for five common commercial aircraft and 19 major airports around the world and use projections of daily temperatures from the CMIP5 model suite under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 emissions scenarios to calculate required hourly weight restriction. We find that on average, 10–30% of annual flights departing at the time of daily maximum temperature may require some weight restriction below their maximum takeoff weights, with mean restrictions ranging from 0.5 to 4% of total aircraft payload and fuel capacity by mid- to late century. Both mid-sized and large aircraft are affected, and airports with short runways and high temperatures, or those at high elevations, will see the largest impacts. Our results suggest that weight restriction may impose a non-trivial cost on airlines and impact aviation operations around the world and that adaptation may be required in aircraft design, airline schedules, and/or runway lengths.
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Read more: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-017-2018-9
All this ignores likely advances in aircraft construction, the complete inability of climate models to forecast global temperatures, let alone regional temperatures, and the growing likelihood that climate models have grossly overestimated climate sensitivity to CO2 emissions.
But lets assume the authors of the study are right. There is an obvious solution; if aircraft are likely to be adversely affected by midday heat, avoid scheduling takeoffs for midday.
Air transport creates global warming.
Global warming hinders airplanes from taking off.
Thus, man-made global warming reduces air traffic.
Problem solved!
Over the years airlines have been making their seats smaller and smaller. They also place them closer together reducing leg room. All this of course is to squeeze more people in to the aircraft so they can make more money. If we are lucky they will have to reverse some of that. I say bring on the heat.
You may get more leg room, but your ticket will go up in price to compensate.
Al Gore and DiCaprio will have more trouble jetting around the world to save us from ourselves?
Pour on the Coal!!
The level of nonsense is rising faster than the level of CO2 or the Oceans.
They’re talking about high temps proportional to air pressure; the higher the temp the lower the pressure.
Well co2 is 60% heavier than ambient air, so for every co2 molecule added to the ambient, the air pressure should rise, lowering the temperature.
By “19 major airport around the world” I gather we are talking about SIN, BKK, Dubai, Phoenix, Jakarta, Delhi, etc? Randomly selected hottest cities pretending to be representative?
Or given 80 years to plan, AUH and DXB could build 500m longer runways at a distant future resurfacing.
The abstract claimed, “Steadily rising mean … temperatures as a result of climate change will likely impact the air transportation system over the coming decades.” It is only the extreme temperatures that have an impact. One or two degrees in the mean temperature will be inconsequential. Another example demonstrating that the alarmists have not thought this issue through!
As others above have commented, there are engineering solutions to this supposed problem. By the time this presumably becomes a problem, all of the current air fleet (except the venerable B-52s) will be retired and replaced with aircraft capable of handling the alleged future problem.
If you have read all the parts of this series of posts, and you want some more amusing, but really inane climate hysteria, try this:
“The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition: The facts, research, and science behind the climate-change article that explored our planet’s worst-case scenarios.” By David Wallace-Wells on July 14, 2017.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html
“I also believe very firmly in the set of propositions that animated the project from the start: that the public does not appreciate the scale of climate risk; that this is in part because we have not spent enough time contemplating the scarier half of the distribution curve of possibilities, especially its brutal long tail, or the risks beyond sea-level rise; that there is journalistic and public-interest value in spreading the news from the scientific community, no matter how unnerving it may be; and that, when it comes to the challenge of climate change, public complacency is a far, far bigger problem than widespread fatalism — that many, many more people are not scared enough than are already “too scared.” In fact, I don’t even understand what “too scared” would mean. The science says climate change threatens nearly every aspect of human life on this planet, and that inaction will hasten the problems. In that context, I don’t think it’s a slur to call an article, or its writer, alarmist. I’ll accept that characterization. We should be alarmed.”
Hon Kong — recently a study presented a steady increase in temperature due to urban heat-island effect. This increase in temperature has not resulted any disruption of aircraft take-off or landing processes.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I’d be interested to see that study. HK Observatory (whose personnel are rabid climate change fatalists) does tend to report only what happens at the observatory site itself which is in an urban heat island. They disregard the temperature variations, both temporal and geographic, throughout the territory. As for the airport, it is a massive concrete platform but (a) the runways are long enough to cope and (b) the temperature does not get above about 36/37C even in summer.
http://www.greenpower.org.hk/html/download/concern/gp_urban_heat_island_report_2012.pdf
Sveral of such studies are available on net.
Hong Kong Runway is built in water. In India large airports changed the location. In Hyderabad from Begumpet [heart of the city] to Shamshabad a rural area close to Himayatsagar Lake. Now surrounded by new constructions. New Delhi changed the Airport [international]. Mumbai changed the international terminal [when I was undergoing Met training, for practical experience, Mumbai [Santacruz] Airport was allotted. I was there for a month].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I wonder if their model included the offsetting increase in air density due the increase in CO2. Although this wouldn’t balance several degrees temperature, it would make a small a measureable effect. Not withstanding all of the above operational changes that could be applied to adapt.
Air density my ass! Put nitromethane in that airplane, it will burn without air and takeoff like a dragster.
http://www.racingjunk.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Antron-Brown-Top-Fuel-Dragster-NHRA.jpg
If it did not need air then why is there an air intake feeding fuel and air into a turbocharger?
It’s not a turbocharger, it’s a supercharger. It will burn with or without air. The supercharger compresses the air to increase density before the fuel burns giving more power. More expanding gas than without air
“Dr. Strangelove July 15, 2017 at 1:40 am
It’s not a turbocharger, it’s a supercharger.”
The difference is what drives that induction system. Superchargers are driven by the pulleys off of the engine. Turbochargers are driven by the burnt fuel via the exhaust. Either system is a forced induction system, forcing air into the system. That is why they are sometimes called “blowers”…all that AIR! Petrol, diesel, nitromethane all need air to burn. You will notice in your pic two “dizzies”…so they also need spark plugs too…
It has spark plugs because it’s a car engine. It uses air to increase power output. Nope nitromethane doesn’t need oxygen to burn. It’s a monopropellant – it has it’s own oxygen unlike hydrocarbons (gasoline, diesel, methane, propane, kerosene) The combustion reaction of nitromethane:
CH3NO2 = CO + H2O + H2 + N2
Yup but it will burn without air. The car engine has air intake so burn it with air and compress it to increase power
Nitromethane is a fuel that needs a heat source to get going. In a small engine in a model aircraft, the glow plug is heated externally, until the engine runs. Then the platinum in the plug “reacts” with the nitro fuel and heat to “keep the platinum coil hot” thus acting as “spark plug”. It’s just hot all the time. Still needs air. These top fuel engines need an air source too, spark and valve timing, otherwise they simply won’t run. Why would they need valves and valve timing?
The extreme temperatures will also make the passengers more fractious, and perhaps drunk, so the airline will have to hire more, bigger, stronger staff to throw the difficult ones off the plane. I wonder if their model includes that?
This reminds me of analog gauges in Star Trek. The authors take todays technology and project it into the future. With the possible exception of JetBlue, all of the planes currently in service will be retired by the end of the century. They fail to take into account changes in technology. If we look back 80 years there were no commercial jetliners.
Also, the aircraft industry tests and designs using wind tunnels and not broken computer models.
I guess Leonardo DiCaprio is going to have to buy a new plane !
Stop going to his movies and he won’t be able to:)
Agreed!
Modern aircraft are “turbo-fans” rather than pure jets of the early years. That is why we see more two engined craft as apposed to four.
Since planes fly on fossil fuels, making them unable to fly ought to be considered a good thing by greens. Maybe they think it’s a problem cause they fear not being able to go to their annual or semi-annual climate conferences – always in someplace like Durban, Rio, Marrakesh, Bali, Tahiti ….
Given that, as a commercial pilot, most of my take-offs use less than max thrust, a couple of degrees of warming will make no difference whatsoever. A lot of the time, we don’t use full runway length.
Maybe a teeny bit more thrust will be needed. Certainly not a cancelled flight.
A non-story if ever there was one
Fake news: A story about a junk study of the hypothetical consequences of hypothetical climate change.
Aim: Keep the climate alarm bells ringing.
Has no one noticed the late evening/night time departures in the Middle East ? Not exactly a “new” issue. Even in southern Canada 50 years ago. Sheesh!
My brother was a pilot of small commercial aircraft. He told me of an experience at Nairobi, both hot and high, and in reference to clipped hedges, he said that when taking off there with a heavily loaded plane – right up to the allowable limits, after actually taking off the procedure was to fly level and straight for the first 7 miles or so, with an altitude of no more than about 15 ft. At this altitude, Wing In Ground effect kept the plane flying although it could not climb. After that 7 miles or so, sufficient fuel had been burnt off that the plane could rise. Same WIG effect as that used by Ekranoplanes – remember the Black Sea Monster?
BTW he was also a test pilot for the RN, and for a commercial aviation outfit, and flew helicopters – including cold weather trials from Fort Churchill of further north. Bit of a change from Nairobi. Was once in the control tower when a plane was arriving from somewhere like San Diego, and the pilot asked if the runway was cleared of snow. All in the control tower fell about laughing – the runway was made of snow!
Bring back the VC-10 ….. It was specifically designed with “hot and high” airports in minf (BOAC flew them to South Africa). It had clean, high lift wings to generate the lift required lifting off from J’burg even with the much less powerful engines of the time.